Primer 2004

Four engineers—Aaron, Abe, Robert, and Phillip—lead a dual life, working for a large corporation by day while running a side business from Aaron’s garage at night, where they craft and sell JTAG cards. The earnings from this venture are funneled into pet science projects in the hopes of garnering attention from venture capitalists.

Tensions rise when the group can’t agree on what project to tackle next, prompting Aaron and Abe to work separately on technology aimed at reducing an object’s weight. Their invention shows promise, but it produces an unexpected side effect: a timepiece left within the device registers a time increase of approximately 1,300 times the activation duration. This leads Abe to the realization that they have stumbled upon a time machine.

After conducting some tests, Abe secretly constructs a prototype of a larger machine capable of holding a person. He travels back to earlier that day and shares the results with Aaron. Together, they develop another machine, referred to as “the box,” opting to exclude Robert and Phillip under the guise of needing to fumigate the garage.

As they begin using the time machines to profit from stock market investments, their adventures become bolder. However, their plans are abruptly interrupted by the shocking arrival of Thomas Granger (Chip Carruth), the father of Abe’s girlfriend Rachel. They intended to secure his financial backing, but an unforeseen incident renders Granger comatose, raising concerns about how he discovered the box. Disturbed by the implications, Abe concludes that continuing with time travel is perilous. To reverse the situation, he uses a “failsafe” machine he built in secret, aiming to go back in time to a moment before his initial venture into time travel.

Upon traveling back four days, Abe meets Aaron but collapses upon his arrival. When Abe recovers, he learns that Aaron had discovered the failsafe box and manipulated events to maintain control over the time travel situation. Aaron, utilizing recorded conversations from a previous moments, explains how he bested his own earlier self, persuading him to forgo the original plan. This newer version of Aaron intends to recreate the events of a party where a crasher aimed to shoot Rachel, making himself a hero in the process.

Abe reluctantly agrees to assist Aaron in altering the party’s outcome, and they appear to succeed; however, it remains uncertain how many iterations it took to achieve this. Their continued experimentation with time travel ultimately drives a wedge between them, leading to a deterioration of their friendship.

As they persist in using the machines, the toll on their health becomes evident. Aaron starts experiencing symptoms resembling a stroke, bleeding from his ears and later struggles with his handwriting and reading abilities. Communication between the two becomes strained, and Abe eventually removes himself from technical discussions with Aaron, even requesting he write things down.

Amid escalating tensions, Aaron confronts Abe about his ulterior motives regarding his family. In a desperate bid to influence the course of events, Abe decides to stay in the timeline to manipulate the original versions of himself and Aaron into abandoning their time travel endeavors, hoping they will interpret their experiment as a failure.

In the film’s final moments, we see the earlier version of Aaron, who had traveled back with the failsafe to create recordings, engaged in a phone conversation implying he is in debt. The film closes on an eerie note, revealing one of the Aarons overseeing a group of French-speaking workers commencing construction on what looks to be a building-sized box.